Monday was Earth's hottest day on record.
In Texas, even lifelong residents say they're struggling to deal with extreme heat.
We're starting to see stories of families pulling up stakes to move to more moderate climates in the United States and beyond.
It's called "climate migration". Dr. John Mioduszewski, with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency's Climate Security Cell in St. Louis, Missouri tells Total Information AM, it's something humans have dealt with through the centuries.
In the United States, Mioduszewski says there are many factors for these moves, "the migration is primarily in response to natural disasters, extreme events, like increased flooding, wildfires, droughts. Increased flooding both from precipitation events as well as the slow rise of sea level."
He adds that people don't tend to cross international borders, but often simply move further inland to get away from extreme climates. That migration can cause a cycle of decline, "you're experiencing net population loss, less of a tax base, and these are already vulnerable communities so it's really been a challenge. This is seen in case studies with different parts of New Orleans and parts of the Gulf Coast."
Mioduszewski points out, globally, mass displacement due to climate-related factors can have security implications by creating conflicts in some regions of the world. He says often, young men will leave a region to seek opportunity, leaving women, children, and the elderly behind.
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